Posted by Social media is a powerful tool that can help you market your brand effectively. However, having a well-formed strategy before jumping on to the bandwagon can help you stand out from the pool of other brands using social media marketing. The world of digital marketing is continually evolving, and content makers need to keep up with the on-going trends.
Social media content marketing is not a new trend, but new tactics emerge every day. Marketers need to be vigilant in identifying the latest methods to develop the most engaging content. Doing thorough research on how to create engaging content and keep the followers hooked is an essential aspect of social media content strategy.
In this article, we will discuss how you can develop a social media content strategy to wow your consumers and keep them engaged with your brand. First, let’s take a look at some interesting statistics:
Stats and Figures of Social Media
Social media has gained popularity amongst the masses in the past few years. Not only are people using it for leisure, but to increase the reach of their business. Below are a few stats indicating social media usage and importance in 2020:
- 50% of the world’s population is now present on social media. (4 billion-plus users worldwide)
- 321 million users joined social media in the year 2019
- An average user spends two hours and 24 minutes per day on social media platforms
- Two third of the U.S citizens use Facebook.
- More than 500 million Instagram stories are uploaded worldwide per day.
- 49% of users make purchase decisions based on influencer’s opinions on social media
- 55% of the audience looks for information about businesses through their social media.
Having a strategy for content is crucial before you start publishing posts. Given below is a guide that can provide you a detailed insight to develop the most effective content strategy:
How to Build an Effective Content Strategy?
There is no one-shoe-fits-all situation when it comes to social media marketing. The strategies vary from the type of businesses and brands; however, there are a few core steps that you can carry out to develop an effective social media that yield your maximum business benefits:
What Do You Want to Do Through Social Media?
Having a social media presence just because everyone has it is not enough. For an effective presence on social media, you must identify your goals and objectives that you want to achieve through social media.
The type of content you want to create is highly dependent upon the goals that you set for your business. Having clear goals can help you in later steps and ultimately help you achieve the core objective.
Some of the most common goals that businesses have through social media are:
- Brand awareness and recognition
- Increased sales
- Landing page views
- Increased engagements
- Build loyalty and connection with the audience
Start with your company’s values and targets, which would help you identify how social media can be used to enhance and achieve those targets. For example, if your marketing goal is to increase sales, then you would want people to get redirected towards your online store through social media.
Focus on the Content
If you already have a social media presence, then you must audit the content and find out which post(s) has performed well. Analyzing content can help you improve your ideas and identify what could be done in a better way.
There are several online tools available that help you get statistics about your social media, which can help you identify which post performed better and why. Social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest Business, and LinkedIn Business, have inbuilt analytics that can help you look at the overall performance of your account. The reports generated by these accounts can help you focus on improving your content.
Furthermore, aligning your content with your objectives can help you achieve your targets with more ease. For instance, if your ultimate goal is to increase your brand’s recognition, you must identify the posts which helped you gain better response and new followers or increased engagement. Then you must continue creating similar posts to build brand recognition.
Content Calendar
A social media calendar is essential for the execution of your social media strategy. It makes your work thousand times more easy and efficient by helping you organize posts and create a timeline. With a social media calendar, it becomes easier to focus on other plans and get a cohesive picture of your scheduled posts.
Each platform works differently and has a different type of user’s niche. That is why you need to know the perfect timings to schedule your posts on social media. Moreover, you can easily repurpose your content by reposting on different platforms.
One software development company that excels in digital marketing suggested that auditing your social media content can also help you analyze where to focus more and how to improve your strategies to perform better.
Distribute Content
Content distribution is important while making your content strategy. Identify your most active platforms, users, and timings and distribute the content as per needs. If your target audience is into reading, then focusing more on useful blog posts can help you get engagement.
While if your content is video and visuals-based, you can publish it on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. You can also network with Youtubers and influencers or bloggers to distribute your content on digital media. Bolster your strategy with user-generated content and make it a part of your content distribution strategy.
Analyze Results
Tools like Facebook Analytics and Google Analytics are available readily, which provide social media analysis indicating how your posts are performing. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have inbuilt analytics to guide the admin about their post’s insights.
Paying attention to these details can help you improve your content and engagement. For example, an analytical tool will show you which posts performed well with the target audience, how many people did they reach, how many likes and comments each post received, and so on. You can improve the quality of your posts after looking at the posts that performed well.
Final Thoughts
The guide presented here focused on developing a social media content strategy so to fully avail of the benefits of content marketing. Setting clear social media marketing objectives, identifying your most popular social media posts, using a content calendar, developing a content distribution strategy, and using analytical tools is a great way to develop a winning strategy that will deliver results.
There are millions of businesses present on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms, which is why there are high chances of your business getting lost in the sea of other social media accounts. If you follow the above-mentioned steps and observe the on-going trends, you can easily stand out amongst the crowd.
More from the author:
2020 Influencer Marketing Guide: Work Well with Social Media Influencers
5 Things Social Media Managers Must Do Now in the Age of Coronavirus
8 Social Media Templates You Should Create to Save Time with your Marketing
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Without an effective social media content strategy it will be incredibly hard to grow your business exponentially with social media.